author: Charles Boyington & Steven Kirkpatrick
Round House Theatre launches the premiere of Inda Craig-Galván’s play A Jumping-Off Point. It is a great launch and worth seeing! The new piece focuses on Leslie Wallace (Nikkole Salter), an African American writer newly hired to develop a series for HBO, whose personal victory is compromised by the return of Andrew (Danny Gavigan), a white man from her graduate school days, who accuses her of plagiarism. Specifically, Andrew accuses her of rewriting his script (submitted for a school project) about Black characters, and of claiming sole authorship. The author clearly wishes to use the topical relevance of this theme as a “jumping off point” for serious thematic contemplation, yet– fortunately– does so with both humor and nicely etched moments of characterization.
Under duress, Leslie admits that she did indeed revise and publish his script, without granting Andrew any credit, but justifies her action on two grounds: one, that she possesses the greater talent and did all the work of making the script effective, and two, that Andrew should never have had the temerity to write a play about Black characters anyway, as he had no “right” to tell those stories, whereas she did. After roiling between self-righteous justification, rage and pained contrition, Leslie eventually accepts Andrew’s compromise offer (or blackmail?) of a spot on the scriptwriting team for the new television series, in return for his keeping quiet about the origins of Leslie’s prizewinning script.
Nikkole Salter successfully navigates the blurred lines between the ambition, resentment, and essential decency of her character, while Danny Gavigan nails both the alternating charm and callow loucheness of the backward-baseball-cap wearing bro who wants to be a writer– and may be just as ambitious as Leslie.
Yet while the focus clearly hinges on the contrast, rivalries, and interplay between Leslie and Andrew, the playwright wisely manages to balance it all though a third character, Leslie’s best friend Miriam, expertly played by Cristina Pitter. Indeed, Miriam’s character (and Pitter’s performance) keep the play afloat, providing a much-needed uplift of realized humor, warmth, groundedness, and embodied humanity as counterbalance to the uneasy pairing of Leslie and Andrew. Enough cannot be said about Pitter’s performance, it was an absolute delight! making each moment of stage time shine with grace and ease!
While the script seems to be heading towards a resolution of Leslie’s mistrust of Andrew as her image of undeserving white male privilege and of Andrew’s need to learn and contribute, the play’s dice are loaded. Leslie has kept Andrew’s voice and contribution to her show muzzled with the order to just stay silent and collect his paycheck, but then Andrew surprises Leslie with the announcement that he’s optioned a show of his own, based on his uneasy, racially tense relationship with her! Although she lamely tries to offer him a contribution, we fast-forward a year to an abrupt end: Andrew is now the lead writer/frontrunner for his own show based on his interactions with Leslie (who is nowhere in sight.) Andrew’s final speech to his public is so asinine, so rote, so cribbed from all of Leslie’s former sayings that it’s hard to know what we are meant to think: give a bro an inch, he’ll take over the whole studio? That ambition is always soul-destroying? That none of this really matters, it’s all just television?? The opening night audience laughed merrily, but…
I believe there is a good script here, yet this production has a few issues. The simple set gets in the way of the action with a turntable that is overused. Scenic designer Meghan Raham has created a very simple and usable set done in tones of gray with occasional pops of color from some very interesting lighting techniques, but it is the implementation of the set that fails the show. The scenes as written are often short with months or even a year between, rotating the set a couple of times may sound like a good idea to show the passage of time but only succeeds in slowing the action instead of letting it flow seamlessly.
Costume Designer Moyenda Kulemeka assured a great visualization of who each of our characters were from the moment we laid eyes on them. The lighting design by Amith Chandrashaker was beautiful in what has to be a difficult space to light. Sound design was by Michael Keck and was appropriate for the show and covered those extraneously long scene changes to the best of their ability.
The aspect of a live production that is almost impossible to predict is the audience. On opening night, the audience skewed rather white and rather elderly. While they were quite enthusiastic, they were not perhaps the greatest audience for this show. Was it a message they should hear? Definitely. Did they get the humor? Some of it. Were they the kind of responsive audience this show craved? Definitely not. I would love to see this show again with a younger and more diverse audience.
Running Time: Approximately 90 minutes with no intermission
A Jumping-Off Point plays through May 5th 2024 as a part of the annual National Capital New Play Festival at Round House Theatre— 4545 East-West Highway in Bethesda, MD. For tickets call the box office at 240-644-1100 or purchase them in advance online.
